Whether or not you think Obama SHOULD be paying attention to what the market does as a result of his policies, there’s a non-zero chance that he WILL, if only for political reasons. Plus, there’s the idea that market crashes like this one are largely psychological, and if anyone in Obama’s inner circle thinks that their response has insufficiently boosted the psychological aspect, then they may do something about it.
I posted a thread a while back about what to do about the confidence/psychology aspect of the economy that never got any replies, but I think it’s a really good topic. This post asks a similar question, but in more concrete terms. What do you think Obama will do differently, if anything, as a result of what happened yesterday. What SHOULD he do? Is it something he should consider at all?
The stimulus passed about two weeks ago. I’d say it should probably be given time to actually perhaps start working before anybody declares it’s time to do something else.
Perhaps, but as I said in the other thread mentioned in the OP, there are already a lot of people declaring the stimulus, and Obama’s approach, a failure because “the market declared it a failure” with the massive drop. That’s a lot of pressure to change course, or do SOMETHING else/different, RIGHT NOW. Thus my OP.
“A lot of people” (could you be more specific?) read the tea leaves each news cycle and demand instant results. I’m not an economist, but I struggle to imagine anything that would have cured the U.S. economy in two weeks. What’s going on with the market is more complicated than “the market doesn’t like the stimulus.”
For example, Obama’s budget includes some changes in Medicare payments, so shares of essentially every company that is connected to Medicare have sold off. Are they all going to report less revenue or fail if Medicare payments are changed? No. But there’s a dearth of information, and given the way things are, people are generally assuming the worst at every opportunity. This does not mean everything is as bad as people assume.
Everyone quoted in today’s front page USA Today article about yesterday’s drop. Many conservatives (although Obama likely doesn’t agree enough with them to care). If you stretch the definition, everyone who’s writing articles about depressions (presenting them as a possibility). I’ll see if I can come up with more.
I’ll read it if you link to it, but no, pundits and Obama’s political opponents are not who I would turn to for reasoned analysis here. (I mention the political opponents because it’s in their interest to criticize everything Obama does, not because being Obama’s opponents alone makes them wrong.)
To add- there’s an element of apples to oranges here. The stimulus plan is supposed to stimulate the economy, not the stock market, although if the economy picks up the market should, too. The fact that the market is down despite the passage of the stimulus does not mean the bill will not do anything for the economy. It takes time for the funds to get out there and the projects, even if they were allegedly “shovel ready” already, to get started.
People are getting hurt by the market now, largely because nobody knows how bad the recession is going to get. They’ll most likely need some evidence that these programs will work before they believe it will reduce the depth and length of the recession.
Despite the whining corporate news pundits blasting President Obama, the vast majority of Americans do not have their net worth tied into the rise and fall of the Dow Jones. It’s unfortunate that people like my parents who had a paltry 100K in a 401K have lost money and others had pensions used as leverage for hedge funds; however, the market has the greatest impact on a small percentage of extremely wealthy Americans: the investment class. Everyone else lives in a different world.
It isn’t reacting directly to the stimulus package. The stock market is reacting to a lack of liquidity which affects business loans. GM may not make it to the March 31 date they had mentioned earlier.
And right you are. And yes, I know there’s a lot more going on than the stimulus, and in fact I also agree that the stimulus absolutely not the biggest thing driving the market. But you wouldn’t say the stimulus has inspired tons of optimism to this point either.
Marley23: I see you saw Wednesday night’s Daily Show (in the CS thread), so you saw some clips of folks saying that the market is reflecting a vote of no confidence in Obama. I point this out because I still can’t find that damn USA Today article online.
Of course, from what I remember of the bit, a lot of those clips were from Fox News, who caters to folks like those I see on the conservative blogosphere complaining about how the idiotic voters were fooled by the liberal media into voting a man who has demonstrated clear and total incompetence over the past month and a half, so that’s an ideological bent that might affect things.
Certainly you are not claiming that Fox news is more skewed than any other network. Were you keeping up with the other cable news networks during the election? A few have a token moderate conservative or two and the rest have old Clinton staffers. Hell, Chris Matthews (in the Carter administration for those who do not know it) gets a thrill up his leg when Obama speaks.
Obama will not change course due to the market collapse…he is an idealogue. As Rahm Emmanuel said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” He is using the panic of the markets to ram through his initiatives like the bloated budget. Also, he is using the market downturn to try to sell his health care plan. I think he assumes the market will turn around at some point and he might as well capitalize on this downturn.
Please don’t beg…it’s unbecoming. If you are going to say that NOTHING you hear on Fox news is to be believed because they are biased then you MUST make the same argument for all the other news networks
Woohoo! Look at those goalposts move…and they’re kickin’ up straw in their wake!
We go from “a lot of those clips were from Fox News” to “not claiming that Fox news is more skewed than any other network” to “NOTHING you hear on Fox news is to be believed” in the span of 5 posts.
I don’t have much confidence in any TV news network, although it’s true that Fox is more nakedly partisan in its commentary. Of course MSNBC is closing the gap, thank goodness. :rolleyes:
In any case, your views (or anyone’s) about the TV networks don’t have much to do with this issue, and the is-Fox-more-or-less biased issue has been debated to death. I was saying that personally, I find it really tiresome.